A Missionary Field at Their Doorstep

To meet the needs of its prospering economy, Germany began to recruit Gastarbeiter, or “guest workers” from other countries, in the mid-1950’s. Large numbers came into the country from Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and what was then Yugoslavia. By 1972 the foreign labor force had swelled to well over 2.1 million.

After the tide of guest workers from the 1950’s into the 1970’s, Germany was swept by a wave of refugees from Africa and Asia in the 1980’s. In the 1990’s, they were joined by refugees from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. As a result of what were then liberal laws offering political asylum, Germany came to have the highest number of foreign-born residents of any nation in Europe.

Jehovah’s Witnesses saw this as excellent missionary territory that had come right to their doorstep. Since “God is not partial” and since people uprooted from their homeland certainly need the comfort that only God’s Word can give, Jehovah’s Witnesses felt keenly obligated to preach the good news to these people. (Acts 10:34, 35; 2 Cor. 1:3, 4) But reaching the 7,500,000 foreigners in Germany in their own language has been no small task.

In order to share Bible truth more effectively with these people from abroad, many German Witnesses learned a new language. What fine evidence that they truly love their neighbor, in harmony with what Jesus taught his followers! (Matt. 22:39) Although most of these Witnesses were unable to be missionaries abroad, they were eager to take full advantage of opportunities within their own country. Thus, by August 1998, more than 23,600 publishers were preaching the good news in 371 foreign-language congregations and 219 publisher groups. Of course, foreign-language congregations are formed not to segregate but, rather, to make it easier for people without sufficient knowledge of German to learn the truth in their mother tongue. Many publishers have come to recognize that a second language may reach the mind but it often takes the mother tongue to reach the heart.

Though foreigners are resented and mistreated by some groups in Germany, among Jehovah’s people they are welcomed with genuine Christian love. Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Persian, Romanian, Tamil, Tigrinya, and Vietnamese are among the 24 languages in addition to German in which Jehovah’s Witnesses here currently hold meetings. At the 1993 “Divine Teaching” District Conventions in Germany, roughly 10 percent of the 194,751 persons in attendance were at the foreign-language conventions. And the number baptized at these was almost 14 percent of the total.

Among those who have responded appreciatively to the Kingdom message is a Hindu family who left Sri Lanka in 1983 because of the war there and who hoped to get medical treatment for their six-year-old son. Sadly, the boy died. But the family has come to know Jehovah, who will raise the dead and grant them the opportunity to live forever. (Acts 24:15) There is also a Nigerian who as a teenage girl had fought in the Biafran war. After she moved to Germany, her life changed when she learned what Jehovah is teaching people about living together in peace.—Isa. 2:3, 4.

Among the Italians who have become Jehovah’s Witnesses while in Germany, it is not unusual to hear the proverb, “Non tutti i mali vengono per nuocere” (“Not every misfortune turns out to be a disadvantage”). How appropriate! Many of those Italians, as well as people from other countries, came to Germany to escape economic problems, only to find something of greater value than material goods—the truth about God and his purpose.

The Witnesses’ zealous activity among these people has been noticed by others. The Halberstadt Congregation received this letter: “We are the central camp for asylum seekers and, at any one time, we care for people from over 40 nations. . . . These people, who stem from a variety of different cultures, have had to leave behind family members, homeland, language, and tradition. They have oftentimes had traumatic experiences, and they face an unsure future. . . . That is why many of them look to religion for support and hope. We are grateful for your generous gift [of Bibles in various languages] enabling these people to find comfort and confidence by reading the Bible in their own language.”

A Few of the Foreign-Language Groups

ENGLISH: Refugees from Nigeria, Ghana, Sri Lanka, India, and elsewhere benefit from the work of the English congregations. Steven Kwakye, from Ghana, is one who benefited. In Germany when a young man from Bangladesh told Steven that he was trying to avoid the Witnesses, Steven suggested that he send them to him instead. When Steven was a young man, a Witness in Ghana talked to him. Now, away from the pressure of his relatives, Steven wanted to learn more. Today he is a Christian elder, and his family shares with him in serving Jehovah.

TURKISH: Rasim’s wife and sons had been Jehovah’s Witnesses for over ten years, though Rasim himself continued in the Islamic faith. He became aware, however, that interpretation of the Koran differed so much from one mosque to the next that some Muslims would not go to any mosque other than their own. On a visit to Turkey, he went to both a mosque and the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. At the mosque, he heard interpretations of Islam that were different from those taught in Germany. Unity was lacking. But upon returning to Germany, he said: “The same love and the same program can be found in the Kingdom Hall here as in the Kingdom Hall in Turkey. This is the truth.”

HINDI: In 1985 two Witnesses called at the door of Sharda Aggarwal just after she had prayed to find a god to whom she could pour out her heart. Her husband had lung cancer. She was despondent, feeling that the Hindu gods were ignoring her prayers. She asked the Witnesses if Jesus was God. Their explanation convinced her that her prayer had been answered. Jehovah sounded like the kind of god she wanted to learn about. Although initially hesitant about turning her back on the gods of Hinduism for fear of displeasing them, she soon threw away their pictures and accepted Jehovah as the true God. She was baptized in 1987. Today she is a regular pioneer, grateful to be serving a personal God in whom she can confide. Her husband and her son are both ministerial servants.—Ps. 62:8.

POLISH: In 1992 a Polish congregation was formed in Berlin, and during the same year, a special assembly day was held in Polish. Even though it took place in a section of Germany where there are many people of Polish background, no one expected to see the Assembly Hall, the neighboring Kingdom Hall, and the cafeteria packed out. An almost unbelievable total of 2,523 persons came! Some of these were Polish Witnesses who were associating with German congregations, but they were delighted to see the work of Kingdom preaching opening up in the Polish field, and they themselves were grateful to be able to hear Bible truths spoken in their mother tongue.

Even Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Chinese!

RUSSIAN: After the end of the Cold War, many people who had grown up in Russia and who spoke Russian but whose ancestors were German returned to the land of their forefathers. There were also members of the Soviet armed forces serving in what was then East Germany, along with their dependents. All humans are born with a spiritual need, and theirs had not been satisfied.

The Schlegel family are ethnic Germans who in 1992 moved from the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine to the land of their forefathers. There they were contacted by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses who originally came from Uzbekistan and who had become a Witness in Germany. After studying the Bible, the entire family got baptized.

Sergej and his wife, Zhenya, were atheists. But when shown the Bible’s answers to their questions, especially regarding the future, they were astonished. Humbly, they developed faith in Jehovah and made adjustments in their lives, even though that meant Sergej’s changing his employment and forgoing entitlement to a pension that would soon have been his.

Marina, a nurse in a military hospital, had been searching for the meaning of life. When she received the book You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, she read it immediately and soon realized that she had found what she was searching for. After she returned to Russia, she visited others who had studied with Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany, to encourage them. Soon she began pursuing her purpose in life as a pioneer.

As of August 1998, there were 31 Russian congregations and 63 smaller groups, with a total of 2,119 publishers—a 27-percent increase over the previous year.

SERBO-CROATIAN: Johann Strecker, traveling overseer in the Serbo-Croatian field, states that at least 16 different nationalities used to live in the former Yugoslavia. He says: “It is marvelous to see how the truth now unites them.” When Munib, a Muslim who had served in the Yugoslavian army for eight years, was invited to a meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany, he found Croats, Serbians, and people with Muslim background peacefully gathering together. To him, this was almost unimaginable! For one month he simply observed. When he became convinced that the peace and unity among the Witnesses is real, he agreed to start studying the Bible. In 1994 he got baptized.

Rosanda, a Roman Catholic from Croatia who had spent several years in a convent, came to visit relatives who had become Witnesses in Germany. After attending the Theocratic Ministry School and the Service Meeting with them, she admitted: “You have the truth. I always wondered how the first Christians preached the gospel. When I saw the two sisters on the platform, the way the one was preaching to the other, the thought flashed through my mind: ‘That must be exactly the way the first Christians did it.’” Today she is a pioneer, following the example of the early Christians.

Some of the German Witnesses who learned the languages of these groups in order to witness to them later actually moved to those countries to serve when that became possible.

CHINESE: Work in the Chinese field in Germany has opened up more recently. “The majority of people from China have never heard of us, much less ever read the Bible,” explains Egidius Rühle, a former missionary in Taiwan. He adds: “Since most Chinese are eager to learn, they soak up knowledge like a dry sponge soaks up water.”

When the 12th class of the Ministerial Training School was introduced to the Selters Bethel family in October 1996, how gratifying it was to meet the first Chinese student to attend the school in Germany. He had learned the truth in Germany. He, in turn, had witnessed to a Chinese professor of geology and had given her the book Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? She read the entire book within a week. Now, instead of teaching evolution, she conducts home Bible studies—16 of them at the end of 1996.

Eager to Share What They Learned

Literally hundreds of foreign residents have learned the truth in Germany over the years and then returned to their native lands to carry on the preaching of the good news. Many now serve as elders or ministerial servants or in other responsible positions. Petros Karakaris is a member of the Bethel family in Greece; Mamadou Keita serves as a missionary in Mali; and Paulin Kangala—known by many as Pepe—is a missionary in the Central African Republic, along with his wife, Anke.

Since the beginning of the 1990’s, over 1,500 Greek-speaking publishers have returned to Greece, some of them as qualified elders. Others have moved to Sweden, Belgium, England, and Canada to further the preaching work among the Greek-speaking populace there. And yet probably in no other country in the world, with the exception of Greece itself, are there as many Greek-speaking publishers as there are in Germany.

[Pictures on page 73]

German Witnesses have helped many immigrants to benefit from Bible truth